


three moments of thought

by lalaietha



Category: Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 04:43:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/605947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/lalaietha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She thinks few women are as lucky as she is now, and even fewer queens.  </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	three moments of thought

**Author's Note:**

  * For [atlanticslide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlanticslide/gifts).



**1**

The day after her coronation is like jumping into the sea. Snow White feels battered from each side, not sure which way the sun is, catching breaths when she can before she's rolled under again. She wonders if this time they'll be any shore, or if this will be the rest of her life: trying not to drown in the ocean that is mostly human tongues and human words, human needs and pains.

Everything's too loud and bright. It has been since she woke - woke from the death she doesn't remember, out of darkness that seems to have fed things into her mind, memories and knowledge and thoughts she can't yet sort into their places. She wonders if this is how new-born babies feel, and if it is, no wonder they cry. She can't afford to cry. She doesn't have time. The battle hadn't been so bad; there, one thought, one need, had driven her forward and on through the brightness and the scent of the whole world. Now there isn't one thing; now there's hundreds. 

Now there's thousands. 

They overwhelm her. 

It's William who reminds her of Eric. No - that isn't true. She never forgets Eric, would never forget Eric, could never forget Eric. No more than she could forget William, ever, and that thought is a deep one, a thought in her bones and marrow: that's where William's written, and Eric too now. But William reminds her that there was something she wanted to do, and needed to do, to give Eric the place he should have and the strength behind it. 

Somehow she's ended up with a clerk. She doesn't know him; she doesn't know anyone. She'll have to fix that. But for now, in the pause after William leans forward from where he stands behind her to murmur in her ear, Snow White turns to that clerk and says, "Draft me a Royal Appointment, and then bring me my Seal." 

For a moment, Snow White wonders if she should have given that the royal plural - but no. 

These things are hard to remember. 

There's perhaps never been an appointment of _Royal Huntsman_ before; at least, the clerk searches for a while but can't find any exemplar and eventually makes it up, basing it on the appointment to the Master of Horse. And if the appointment has never existed, Snow White knows, then she can make it over to whatever it is she wants. And will. 

For once today her hand is entirely steady as she presses the Seal with its many-branching tree into the red wax. When she gives it to Eric and he reads it, he catches her eye and he's almost laughing.

**2**

There isn't, in the end, all that much choice. Snow White doesn't say it aloud, but Eric does - Eric's way, to say the things between them that they avoid giving voice to, as if he isn't afraid of them. Maybe he isn't. Maybe a dozen more years and a lot more Hell means you stop being afraid of these things.

He says it, "It's a good job she wants to marry you," to William, one evening that they sit in the gardens with wine mulled and sweetened to cover its harsh edge. Eric drinks little of it; the servants bring him camomile. "Seeing as she'd more or less have to anyway." 

William catches a little bud of nutmeg that survived the wine's straining and flicks it at Eric while Snow White tries not to laugh and fails, descending into the kind of undignified giggling she can't often afford these days. Not out of the walls of this garden, or the company of these men. 

"Romance," William says wryly, "is for peasants." 

Eric snorts. "As the only one of you who's ever been a peasant," he retorts, "no, it isn't. It might not get written down, but believe me, as much consideration's given to who's father's passing along to who what portion of a farm or a mill or a goat herd as is to duchies and river-rights." 

Snow White thinks that's probably true. She knows how Anna and the other women of the fens think, at least; and their minds tend much more towards _good fisherman_ and _ready worker_ than _own true love_ when it comes to talking of husbands. "Who is it for, then?" she wonders aloud. The cup is warm in her hands and the sun only just setting now, in the summer. "Romance." 

"People without responsibilities," William says. 

"In other words, nobody," Eric adds. 

It's true, though. Oh, here and there are things that might look like choices, but they aren't. She is a queen, and power goes where she weds; alliances are important. And yet suitor after suitor fails the important test, falling off any imaginary list and not recovered. Because the spectre of her father's body on his own bed, eyes empty and blood still oozing around the knife - it still burns behind her eyes some nights as she tries to sleep. 

She won't wed where she can't trust, and of all the men in the world she can only trust two. And only one of those is a duke's son.

**3**

William is a bright star, leading the day; Eric is the glow of an evening's fire, warm and safe against the chill of night.

Snow White tells neither of them this. Her husband would blush and turn awkward; her huntsman would laugh at her, even if only behind his eyes. She keeps the thought to herself, and in the end it doesn't need sharing anyway. She thinks maybe together they're a blessing meant to make up for what came before, though to be honest when she thinks that she always wonders which two of them are meant to make up to which other. 

Today she thinks it as they ride back, both of them gone to negotiate a truce and both of them returning victorious. The relief is deeper than the joy - Tabor can't afford another war, not now. Tabor can never truly afford a war as far as Snow White's concerned, true; she hates the thought of spending the lives of any subject. But even more, now, at this still fragile beginning. Maybe one day her throne won't tremble so easily, but it does now. 

But messengers came before to bring her good news, and beyond that William and Eric are both laughing as they ride at the head of the column stretching back over the hills, sharing some joke between them and Eric nearly pushing William off his mount. Both horses object, shying and snorting and that only makes William laugh harder, though Eric's attention turns to the mare he rides. 

Snow White stands on the battlements because she's impatient; she stands to watch them because it makes her heart twist into a pleasant kind of ache, and it makes her smile even if she can't hear the joke and laugh at their ease together. 

She thinks few women are as lucky as she is now, and even fewer queens. 

When she meets them at the gates it's William who can kiss her cheek, and then Eric kisses her hand; but both kisses are hers and they mean the same thing.


End file.
